Contents

News and Updates

Detailed project progress and updates can be found in the ViViz Project Diary. Here is an abridged version of the most significant events.

12/09/2009: ViViz final reports, slides and video demo are available from the resource section.

11/25/2009: We will be conducting a demo of ViViz at Prof. Memon's class which teaches GUITAR to students on 12/03/2009. The student's feedback will be recorded using the demo feedback form. Results and comments from the students will be available on the site.

About

Why ViViz?

Software testing, and especially GUI testing, has always been a difficult and time consuming procedure. With software increasing in complexity at an exponential rate, the need for automated testing procedure has never been before more urgent. Testers using current automated software testing usually have to contend with poor user interfaces which does not enable them to see exactly which part or module of the software is failing. Many tools are simply command lines that produces text based reports which require much time and effort to pinpoint where the fault is.

Here is where the utility of ViViz - a visualization tool for project GUITAR - becomes obvious. ViViz is aimed at helping testers of GUI software determine test coverage issues, detect faults and visualize the entire GUI structure in a simple to use program that uses various graph representations to highlight potential bugs and missing test cases within the GUI. ViViz provides an intuitive interface with viewing, filtering and navigation functions that allows the user to explore and obtain deeper insight on the GUI with its testing data. This is achieved by presenting the GUI structure together with the testing results so that the GUI testing results are presented in a concise and informative manner. The addition of screenshots of the various GUI modules (widgets) in the graph representation also serves as a powerful visual memory tool for users to reconstruct and make sense of the potentially complicated GUI structure.

This web page hosts the current version of ViViz and all supporting documentation needed for the new software tester to start using ViViz with GUITAR in as short a time as possible with manuals and video demonstrations. All these and more information on ViViz and its sister project GUITAR can be found in Resources section.

Features

ViViz is designed to serve as a visualization front end to enable users to understand and see GUITAR's output in a clearer and intuitive way. It is therefore 100% compatible with GUITAR's output. Basic features of ViViz include:

Visualizing and exploring the GUI structure.

Visualizing and exploring Event Flow Graphs (EFG).

Show GUI testing coverage.

Design of new test cases to ensure adequate testing.

Aid in the creation a GUI storyboard with automated screenshot capturing.

Revealing faults and bugs in GUI design.

These features and more are highlighted in the various screenshots of ViViz in action with an example GUI application - the SpaceTree Explorer. ViViz had been warmly received by several users of GUITAR with their testimonies highlighting the utility of visualization for software testing.

More advanced features such as editing the EFG and GUI tests for feedback to GUITAR with scalability to larger and even more complex GUIs will be available in future standalone releases. The integration of ViViz into GUITAR is also currently planned in concurrent future releases of GUITAR as well.

Screenshots

Overview and Data loading

Main window

Loading an external data file

Loading data from drop down menu

Visualization options

Substrate view - nodes are placed in actual positions of the GUI

Tree layout - nodes are placed by their hierarchical rank in the GUI structure